Chapter 28 Fate Isn’t Final #3
“No,” I say out loud. “Nothing can tell me what I am or what I’m not.” My voice grows stronger still, even as the water overtakes me. My neck strains, and I choke out the last few words. “Fate isn’t final. Neither is failure. Neither are you,” I tell the darkness.
Then, with all the focus and strength and confidence I’ve uncovered these past few weeks, I fill myself with all the things that make me me, and make life strange—
And I unleash.
Pink magic shines from every inch of my skin, through the armor, cutting right through the impending night, and the metal shackles—they shatter. The water evaporates, turning into mist.
The darkness scatters. I break through all the shadows left until I’m soaring to meet Robin, gripping her cold hands with my own, giving her some of my warmth.
Her eyes are still wide. Still fighting the chaos within.
“Release your hold on magic, Robin,” I say as scraps of shadows start growing again, their edges coming together. “Release it. Release us all.” My voice breaks. “Please.”
With my focus on Robin, I don’t see it coming. It’s too quick. Too quiet. The darkness rallies and attacks from each corner, all at once, in a final, brutal strike, and by the time I notice, it’s too late.
Four sword-shaped shadows are hurling toward me, their sharp edges aimed for my chest, as if to split me into pieces. My grip on Robin’s hands loosens. I close my eyes, waiting to feel the avalanche of pain. The light within me finally going out. The rush of regret.
It never arrives.
I open my eyes again only to find Robin’s arms raised, trembling with strain. The shadow swords are just inches from my skin, quivering in defiance. Trying and fighting to reach me.
She’s saving me.
The wind roars behind her; the shadows rage. The school shakes, rock raining down, the fell magic taking one last stand.
It wants to ruin. It wants to destroy. If it can’t control Robin and her magic and her school and her land…
It would rather see it all turned to dust.
No.
My friends are up there, keeping the birds at bay. They helped me, even when it would’ve been so much easier for them to just leave the second they had the chance.
My mom. She didn’t cower. She fought for the place she loved. She gave her life to save everyone else. To save me.
Now those same walls she fought to protect are coming down. I hear it, the crumbling of stone high above. Have entire floors been reduced to rubble? Have all the towers fallen?
Robin’s eyes flash with fear. She looks terrified now, the fell magic banished from where it had taken up inside her head. This is her school; everything she loves. Her own magic is now taking it down, brick by brick. She’s trying to regain power over it.
It isn’t working.
A vein bulges on her forehead, the strain too great. The darkness too strong for her to fight alone.
But she isn’t alone.
I lift my arms now, too, until our palms are just inches apart…
And between them, a deeper, more saturated shade of pink begins to form, one born not just of cotton candy paradise and perfectly shaped dreams, but of reality, of the nuances of everyone and everything and every shade of what life brings.
It bleeds bold and fierce, glimmering brightly, until it spreads beyond our hands, into a cloud of power encapsulating us both.
The shadows and storm launch forward, hitting us with the force of a thousand blades.
But they all ricochet off our combined magic.
She grips my hands. I grit my teeth. My armor begins to shine, adding its own unique glimmer to our combined pink.
My mother’s magic.
The darkness doesn’t stand a chance.
The next time it launches forward, it doesn’t just retreat. It burns away in a flash of screaming smoke.
Our pink magic—my mom’s, Robin’s, mine—keeps growing, building like a tidal wave, filling the armory, traveling up the spiral staircase—until, in a flash, I feel it spill right through the walls of built-up bricks, through the entire school, destroying the shadows still tormenting the rooms and the vicious storm roaring through our land, turning everything that had been twisted and mangled back into what it once was.
Until only pink remains. This new shade of pink, one we created. Together.
With a final, pitiful hiss of darkness, the last of the shadows are vanquished.
Our magic rushes back, receding into our hearts. Mine glows fiercely.
And my armor… it’s changed color, too… from light pink to that bold magenta hue.
Our feet touch the ground, and I’m in her arms in a moment.
“Barbie,” Robin says. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” I say, throat thick with emotion. And when I pull back, I can see the regret and pain in her expression. “Things can’t go back to the way they were, Robin. It was wrong. Heartland is going to change.”
Robin looks wary. But she doesn’t say a word before pulling me into her arms again.
Above, doors start to open, the locks falling away. Light shines into the stairwell from windows that are no longer smothered by oppressive stone. The control of magic, a vise around us all, is lifted, like a veil burning away, turning into a pile of cinder.
And a new world is born from its ashes.